Commentary and analysis to persuade people to become socialist and to act for themselves, organizing democratically and without leaders, to bring about a world of common ownership and free access. We are solely concerned with building a movement of socialists for socialism. We are not reformists with a programme of policies to patch up capitalism.

Wednesday, March 02, 2016

Caring about CAR

At least half of the population or 2.5 million people in the
Central African Republic are facing a hunger crisis, in a situation that has
become dire, the World Food Programme said.

Bienvenu Djossa, WFP country director in CAR, said on
Tuesday that the number of people battling hunger had doubled from 2015 and
serious interventions had to be implemented to ensure the crisis did not
deteriorate. "It is serious. The situation is worse than last year,"
Djossa said a statement. "It is crucial that we continue helping the most
vulnerable, who need emergency food assistance to survive. This is the time
when people need the maximum help possible as it is also the lean season, when
people struggle to have enough food to eat before the next harvest."

Three years of bloodshed and the displacement of nearly one
million people from their homes have disrupted harvests and sent food prices
soaring. An escalation of violence in September helped exacerbate a massive
increase in food prices with the price of beef almost double pre-crisis levels.
Families have been forced to sell their possessions, pull their children out of
school and even resort to begging. Children receiving school meals under the
WFP's emergency programme are putting part of their serving in a plastic bag to
take home.

The UN revealed that overall crop production in 2015
remained 54 percent below the pre-crisis average. "Some 75 percent of
people in CAR depend on agriculture, and with the planting season starting in
less than two months, boosting agriculture now is crucial to revitalising the
economy and to stability in the country," FAO Country Representative
Jean-Alexandre Scaglia said. Killing and looting had almost halved the number
of cattle and reduced the number of sheep and goats by almost 60 percent, the
UN said. Damage to infrastructure and insecurity had also hit fishing.